When The Dead Come Marching
by death-in-the-orchard
Summary: 1918 - during Van Hellsing's time. Alucard is sent out to hunt on the Western Front.


Thank you Leeni13 for fixing all of the German errors. (I might have a few 'roter' errors, but hopefully not.) ^_^'

* * *

It was black all around them. They held their breaths, sitting in the damp muck as another soldier stood, his body fitting the curve of the wall of the trench with his periscope lying on stacked sandbags. All of the men listened, hands on their guns, eyes intent upon the man who was peering into the blackness that obscured the land between their trench and the Germans.

Listening with silent breaths and drumming chests, they could no longer hear the yells. The screams that had curdled their blood and stiffened their limbs in the mud, were gone. They did not know what had happened in the German trenches, but now the gunfire had stopped. The yells had stopped. The screams were gone. The periscopes that perched themselves on the sandbags and dirt struggled to see, and then gave up. But when they had heard movement in the man-less land, and when rounds of bullets had chattered in their ears as their guns fired at what they assumed was a German advance, and when moans that were not of pain were heard, the periscopes had returned to confront the blackness of the night. The eyes of the soldiers waiting in the muck continued to watch the man who lay against the wall of the trench.

They saw him stiffen, recoil, he shouted and guns were fired. Shapes were moving, out there, in the darkness they could not clear from their eyes. And the moans, low and mindless, were chilling as the stumbling things crossed the battlefield, some snagging and falling over barbed wire or into craters and pools of water left from past bombardments which had brutalized the land. They were German soldiers – they had come from the enemy's trenches - but they were walking upright, advancing unarmed, clear targets for the bullets that tore into them. None of these attackers were ducking or trying to protect themselves. They were moving forward, flesh ripped from their bones as the bullets shredded them, walking onwards while leaving pieces of themselves behind, and gaping mouths uttering an endless torrent of moans that bore no emotion. The men fired, round after round, and the night roared with blazing guns and fire. Fear rose with the volume, with the yells, with the overwhelmed moans of the advancers as the soldiers feared that some new terrible invention would twist this nightmarish war beyond what they could neither comprehend nor endure.

But it fell silent following a chain of commands, and the mist that shifted like a cloud through the empty land obscured the periscopes as they searched for more of the stumbling Germans, as the men in the muck sought out the enemy with their ears – finding no evidence of the moans amongst the silence. This time, as the men waited, it was not the man with the periscope who yelled. The men in the trench called out in alarm when they saw a figure suddenly stagger to his feet at the top of the wall. Two men fired and the German soldier toppled down upon them. The British soldiers shoved the body away, and then all waited to see if it would move. The arms were in tatters, and a shoulder had been blasted away - they saw this when they turned the dead body over, prodding it and finding it lifeless.

As they prepared to abandon the body and turn their attention to the possibility of another attack, the dead man lunged from the muck, inspiring shouts of alarm. A new choking shriek rent the night, and a British soldier wrestled and fought with the dead thing that had caught hold of his forearm with its teeth when the soldier had sacrificed his arm in order to protect his throat. But the man was overpowered by the weight and ferocity of the dead creature, and his yells tore in two, a high squealing rose and convulsed, filled with panic and pain as well as disbelief that this should be possible. They were writhing in the mud, intertwined in misery, hunger, and death; men observing and beginning to act but leagues from the battle, leagues from the man who was struggling to survive. Dead groaning teeth tore into his face, stripping his cheek of skin and muscle as it ate him. Others, who had hesitated to fire when they did not have a clear shot of the dead soldier, did so now. The bullets blasted into the back of the German uniform, but the creature continued to eat the man alive – the soldier squealed and fought, thrashed and cried out, but the teeth sank and tore and swallowed with the incessant moaning that was drowning the dying man who swam in mud mixed with his own pouring blood. The soldiers fired again, and they were yelling with the screams. But the screams were wrenched from the victim's throat when it was torn out by the teeth. The barrel of a gun met the dead German's skull – and so, hate-filled eyes damned the creature to an eternity of suffering.

With a single blast, the bullet tore through the brain, and the dead thing slumped onto the soldier it had killed. Its viscous blood oozed from the hole that had silenced it, as the horrified men panted, trembled, and waited for the creature to move. But it was still.

With a spike of fear that rounded their eyes and jolted their veins, the soldiers fired into the body again with shocked curses when they thought the body had suddenly jerked up, as if lifting itself with its tattered arms; but it had been the dead man beneath the creature that had jerked. After a frantic minute of panic and broken reasoning, they fired into their dead comrade until his body was broken, continuing until he fell into the muck. And then they were swept further into the madness – as they carried on, emptying their cartridges until the dead soldier had ceased to squirm in the crimson mud.

The trenches did not exchange fire the next day. But gunfire was still heard from within the trenches, predominately from the Germans. Silence would come and go, bringing the thought that all but those within sight were lying dead in their trenches, but then the resumed gunfire would announce the continuance of the nightmare.

A single body stumbled blindly in the man-less land beneath the weak sunlight that passed through the cloud cover, a man groaning as smoke rose from his burning flesh, dead eyes darkening to black – he eventually toppled into a pool and sunk into the water. His wriggling, resembling a fish left in too shallow water, rippled the pool until he finally lay dead and the water was blackened by the smoke it had captured.

*~*~::..+..::~*~*

Molten fire burned through the misery of the slick trenches, viewing the slumped carcasses that filled the positions of soldiers who should have been alive. The vampire's eyes swept over the sandbags and the wooden planks black boots were treading over to avoid the deepest mud. Only the vampire walked through the trenches of the Allied forces, a singular shape in the dead veins of the Great War. The soldiers had barricaded themselves in the dug-outs, avoiding the ghouls who trudged through the muck searching for flesh, and resisting the monsters which clawed ineffectively at the doors the men reinforced with whatever they had at hand.

Two small bands of Hellsing soldiers were currently setting fire to the dead and killing ghouls who drew near – but only the nosferatu hunted in the darkness, short spurts of gunfire from a tommy gun ripping through the ghouls' gapping mouths and empty eyes when they looked up from the dead men they were gnawing on – the bodies of ghouls the soldiers had managed to kill on their own.

As Alucard strode forward, a ghoul was devouring a man who was slumped against the wall of the trench, a periscope half absorbed by the mud. The creature looked up when it noticed Alucard, and with a heavy moan it rose and began to advance on the crimson vampire that did not flinch away from its intent. Just when it was beyond arm's reach, Alucard's tommy gun rose to the ghoul's head and a flood of bullets ripped through its eyes and skull. The ghoul slumped face down into the mud, falling over the plank Alucard was standing on, so that the demon stepped over the dead ghoul as it continued its hunt.

Ghouls sunk into the trenches as the crimson monster advanced, listening at times to the silence that was rarely broken by gunfire from the German trenches. But Alucard stopped and peered over the wall of a trench at the front line when the blast of a grenade was heard, followed by the sound of flames.

The licking tongues of the fire could be heard by undead ears, and the weapon that imitated an exhaling dragon was listened to for a time. However, Alucard's attention returned to the creature's present task when a ghoul moaned; the vampire turned and the tommy gun let out a spurt of bullets.

The black boots stepped over the planks, tapping quietly as silence had resumed and the smell of the burning corpses the Hellsing men were heaping together in a great bonfire permeated the damp air, while the mist that sifted through no man's land drifted over Alucard's head. The fire grew as the night went on.

The Hellsing men carried on with their work as soldiers of mixed origins aided them, transporting bodies and collecting dog tags. When a change in the sound of the gunfire was perceived by their ears, only the soldiers stopped to listen intently as the tommy gun rattled off in the battle field – no longer in the trenches. One of the British soldiers spoke to a Hellsing man after he had been gazing in the direction of the gunfire for some time, "Will he kill the monsters for them as well?"

"Yes." The Hellsing man resumed his work, carrying the head of a corpse as another man carried the feet. The Allied soldiers paused.

"Why? Let the monsters kill them for us. Let the German pigs die so this war can end. Why are you helping them? When that only leaves them with more soldiers-?"

A different Hellsing operative interrupted the speaker, as the other Allied soldiers were listening and nodding, standing still and no longer helping the specialists burn the corpses.

"We kill the undead. They are our enemies, and that is our war. If all of those men are bitten by ghouls, _you_ will be left with an army of the undead to fend off. And it would become our responsibility to fight them. Having fought with them for a _day,_ which would you rather face? Mortal men? Or monsters that don't feel your bullets, which will devour you and turn you into a monster? What you have faced so far is not Evil. You were not fighting demons before last night. The men you have been killing are not monsters, but you want us to allow them to be slaughtered and eaten and transformed into ghouls – so they can turn and feed on you and then the local civilians?"

The men were silent while the Hellsing operatives carried on with their work, soon joined by hushed soldiers who grimly set to completing their tasks, listening for the tommy gun as it roamed through no man's land. The soldiers flinched and froze, staggered by a sudden gunshot that blasted behind them. With widened gazes and pursed lips, they saw a Hellsing man point to a felled ghoul with the warmed barrel of his pistol and tell the men to throw it on the crackling mountain before them - the heap of flames which rose from a pit that had been dug out by German artillery fire. The men did as they were told.

*~*~::..+..::~*~*

The nosferatu had roamed through the battle field enough, and now stood over the first German trench it had reached, peering down at the mud before eventually observing a collapsed body that had been opened and disemboweled in the muck. With an aimed leap, the vampire entered the enemy trenches and paused to listen to the night before renewing its hunt.

The trench was deeper than but just as unpleasant as the trenches the vampire had visited before, and sticks that reinforced the damp walls were plentiful. These sticks reminded the demon of the process men had used to construct walls in the past, weaving branches together and thickening the structure with mud mixed with feces, slopped together with chilled hands – both were a matter of survival, but here unrelenting chaos characterized these walls. Wet as it was in the trenches and with the influence of the thick mist, the vampire felt the chill of the changing seasons through its trench coat, but it ignored the clamminess as it searched for its dull prey. Scent was impaired by these conditions (an excess of blood and dampness), but ghouls are stupid and clumsy enough to be found in any condition.

Sound was heard where the tight trench zigzagged, so Alucard followed it, listening with narrowing eyes – then a pulse was heard thudding loudly against a cage of bone.

The demon observed the muddied shape of a German soldier crouched in the trench with a rifle aimed towards it.

_"Warum kannst du nicht sterben? Sterben! Sterbensterbensterbenraaaahhhhh!"_ The hoarse roar clawed its way through the despair-filled soldier Alucard had discovered, rippling through the distraught body like an explosion that would destroy the man in order to slay the monster he feared – a spark ignited gunpowder so that a bullet buried itself in the vampire's intestines. Crimson dipped to see the wound, and then lifted to view the German soldier. He was pale to the extent that he had reached unnatural whiteness, no pallor clung to his cheeks, but enough rebellion remained inside him to let the man growl at the vampire and curse its existence. The soldier brandished the bayonet that was attached to his riffle while stolid red eyes observed, the slashing blade hesitating before the final plunge. The Vampire Alucard's tommy gun was hanging at the demon's side, and it did not move to respond as the man built up the will to lunge.

_"Halt!"_ The coarse tongue snapped, emotion finally surfacing on the undead features to reveal the vampire's impatience. If Alucard could not kill the man, there was no point in prolonging this dull excursion. The only interest this hunt held for Alucard was the opportunity to observe the conditions of the war. The German was stunned by the response, and his addled mind began to register the strange Victorian attire, the utter lack of a uniform, and the weapon Alucard held. The man could not comprehend how a living man could have been found in the trench, and how he might have shot something other than a monster, something that had not even been a soldier. His first inclination was to believe his mind had finally begun to break, and that this was no longer reality. He would wake up in a hospital, or this nightmare was his hell which would continue forever. For these corrupt thoughts and emotions, a disturbing grin contorted the man's face and he muttered.

_"Was ist das?"_

_"Ich bin nicht dein Feind."_

Though Alucard claimed not to be an enemy, the crimson glare and the dead face of the vampire could do nothing to convince the oddly grinning soldier. The man laughed at the demon, shrilly and then heartily. _"Lügner. Er ist ein Lügner. Und er spricht… Der Dämon spricht."_ He laughed at the absurdity of the world, as the vampire watched with narrowed eyes.

"Laugh until they come for you then, but move out of my way."

The altered tongue was unexpected, causing the soldier to cut off his own laughter and watch Alucard as the vampire passed him and walked through the trench. The Vampire Alucard set undead eyes on the work that needed to be done, and ignored the soldier that got up to follow it.

"So where have you come from, roter Dämon?"

Alucard disregarded the question and continued to walk, so the man continued to follow, keeping the rifle pointed at the vampire's back, as if he were directing the demon to some destination by force. "What do you know about these other monsters? Eh? Roter Dämon? Why did you jump down here?" But Alucard continued to ignore the man, and they walked on.

The man could see that the demon was searching for something. He observed the tommy gun for a time, and tightened his grip on his own gun. The airiness in his head had ballooned in his body, and nothing was real to him now. "Were you the one who was shooting out there?" No response came, but as the man was about to continue, the tommy gun whipped up from Alucard's side and rattled off, bullets burrowing into the skulls of two ghouls who had been feeding quietly on a corpse. When the spurt of gunfire had faded, the vampire twisted it neck to send a narrow stare through the German soldier, feeling the bullet the man had fired into its back - which now rested in Alucard's stomach. The man stared back at Alucard mutely, prepared to fire again – this time not merely from reflex.

The tommy gun indicated the dead ghouls as Alucard turned and stepped aside to give the soldier a good view of them. "I am here to exterminate your pests. I only have a few hours left to finish. I do not want to work after dawn."

The man continued to stare, and when Alucard trudged onward, the pale soldier became the creature's shadow. He watched as Alucard killed the ghouls with ease and stepped over their fallen carcasses. Most of the German soldiers were barricaded in their dug-outs, the others were dead or had fled from the trenches.

The German soldier following Alucard was a tall light haired man with sunken green eyes that were blurred with a detachment from the present. He was filthy, bloodied, and worn through with fatigue and horror, but his step was calm behind the demon. His dog tags tinked outside of his uniform, against his chest as he moved on with long strides. _"Wie heißt du, roter Dämon?"_

"My name is irrelevant." The demon answered, dulled by the tedious work. Another ghoul lay dead a minute after the vampire had spoken.

_"Was bist du?"_

_"Ein Vampir."_ Alucard responded, deciding to diminish some of the man's confusion only to occupy the time. More ghouls were slain, as if the demon were swatting flies, like a horse standing in a stall with no means of escaping these nuisances.

The man grunted after some progress had been made, and they had passed the door to a dug-out. _"Du bist ein roter Vampir." _He looked on quietly as Alucard drilled through a cluster of ghouls, finding that their appearances were becoming more frequent. The vampire's gun swung back and shot past the man without warning. Numbed by his distress and having realized that the bullets had not struck him, the soldier looked back to find several more ghouls which fell into the mud and moved no more. With the same blurred detachment in his green eyes, the man observed their uniforms dully, and followed Alucard as before. "And you are real, roter Vampir? Or are you a dream?"

"If I were in your dreams, that would be unfortunate. I am not haunting you. I will be gone once my job is finished. And you can continue to rot in this filth." Alucard mentioned this as the slickness of the black boots made the creature's step unsteady for a moment, and the vampire stopped to scrape the bottom of the boots clean against the sticks that covered the walls of the trench.

A little time later, the sound of running feet above the walls of the trenches turned the German soldier's head. When he glanced at Alucard he saw that the activity had also caught the vampire's attention. The man stared as he saw man in an unfamiliar uniform with a strange crest on his badge stop above them. Other men stopped with him – a group of five looking down at them or away into the distance.

"There's a hoard, two trenches over. We'll clear out the ones here, you go ahead and get rid of the worst of them." The men began to lower themselves into the trench as the vampire began to climb the opposite wall. The German soldier gazed at them blankly. He attracted their attention when he motioned to their uniforms in an odd manner, and spoke with an unhealthy casual air.

"Those are nice uniforms. I haven't seen anything as descent as these in a long time. But they're the wrong color – they're all wrong. Are they sending you these along with your brandy? Hurensöhne… trinken Schnapps… Ha!" He chuckled to himself as he sneered at the men. The Hellsing operatives looked the German over, and then called to the vampire which now stood at the top of the wall.

"Who is this?"

Alucard gazed down at the man who was still chuckling, and the green eyes moved to greet the demon with a lopsided smirk. "An idiot. If you startle him, he shoots you in the back." With that Alucard turned and leapt over the next trench. The men heard the creature land and then jump down into the ghoul infested trench the Hellsing soldiers had spoken of. The tommy gun fired off, and the continued rattling, with pauses that signaled the creature was reloading, told of the sheer multitude of ghouls. The German was silent, staring at the mental image he retained of the vampire standing on the wall of the trench and leaping away. The gun shots echoed in broken instances that came too quickly to be properly accepted by his mind. There were so many dead comrades. Were they all dead? Or could some of them be alive? Could survivors become casualties as the roter Vampir continued this onslaught?

The German turned and noticed that the men were leaving him, and instead of allowing himself to be abandoned to listen as the tommy gun rattled into the night, he followed the Hellsing men. They looked at him, but permitted him to stay close. "Do not shoot us." One of the men warned, resting a tommy gun against his shoulder to make the consequences clear. "We are here to kill the monsters you have been fighting."

The German said nothing, so the gun tapped against the shoulder and the Hellsing man frowned until the German would consent to nod. The German received a doubtful look, but the man turned and walked with his comrades. A ghoul was found, and the tommy gun that had been shown to the German plowed through the monster's brain, taking only a moment to fill it. However, it was clear to the German that the roter Vampir had been quicker. The gloved finger had only held the trigger for an instant, and none of the bullets had been wasted, even several yards away from the target – as had been the case for the Hellsing man.

As they went along and the vampire's tommy gun was still audible, the German began to seek an explanation. "Are you soldiers?"

The man who had spoken to him before volunteered to do so again, holding the tommy gun ready in his hands, with his eyes looking forward. Other men were looking back or up at the walls of the trench. "We are part of the Hellsing Organization - our mission is to destroy the undead in the name of God. We serve King George V, and Abraham Van Hellsing."

The man who had been speaking jerked back, and the others did the same to watch in alarm as a ghoul tumbled into the trench, shot though the head by a Hellsing operative standing beside the German. The shooter made a comment about continuing to watch out for attacks from above. They strode onwards.

"Are all of you vampires?"

This surprised the Hellsing man who was supposed to respond, and the others glanced at the soldier for a passing second before resuming their watch. "No. We are human." A ghoul came into view, but the man continued to speak as another aimed. "Were you able to speak to Alucard?"

The bullets from an automatic rifle rattled and then fell silent.

The German waited for the silence. Then he nodded slightly. "So that is the demon in the red trench coat?"

"Yes." The Hellsing man's jaw tightened and loosened, and he surveyed the trench as they made a cramped turn. He carefully avoided the dead ghoul, while another went forward some ways when he found what the ghoul had been eating. The dead soldier's head was missing so he was in no danger of rising again, therefore the men ignored the headless body. However, the German's eyes lingered on the man as he was left in the mud. They passed a dug-out without pausing, trudging in silence and following the planks beneath their boots. A few yards later, they stopped when the man with the tommy gun came to a halt and turned to the German. "Why don't you take shelter back there? It will be safer, and you can tell the men that they will be able to come out in a couple of hours."

The white features were as empty as the sunken gaze when the man stared into the Hellsing operative's face without blinking. "They won't open that door for all the world. I wouldn't open it if I were asked to, not in this place."

This scenario did not seem unlikely, so the Hellsing men said nothing more about depositing the German at one of the dug-outs, and let him accompany them as the ghouls became scarce and the tommy gun in the distance rattled less frequently.

It was cold and damp, and the mud had plastered everything beneath their knees, due to the time they had spent climbing, digging, carrying, and hunting. The clouds were too thick to see the stars or the moon throughout the night – yet as dawn approached, the clouds began to thin, and faint starlight was observed fading from the sky.

When the German looked up to see the stars again, they had gone, and the sky was veiled by smeared clouds, but it was not as dark as it had been before. It was dim, but not black in the world, so morning must be advancing. The German's body stopped automatically with the Hellsing men's, and he looked on, surprised when a pocket watch was referenced to pick out the time. "We won't finish on time….no, that is not possible now. …Alucard won't be pleased."

"I don't care what pleases or displeases Alucard. He'll finish his job. There's no room for complaint here."

Following with his eyes, the German listened to the men converse amongst themselves. They had been relatively silent until now, wary as they made their way in the trenches. But it was apparent that the threat had significantly lessened from before. They had not heard the tommy gun recently – but the last time it had been detected, the gunfire had sounded somewhat distant. The German had the impression that the men were merely wandering now, waiting to fall upon residual monsters that the vampire might have left behind. The group came across dead bodies with their faces punctured or made unrecognizable by bullets, slumped and fallen in the trench. These bodies were tested with a rifle that was equipped with a bayonet, which much resembled the gun in the German's hands. And as this was going on the German would watch, blurring his vision so as not to recognize the broken faces – when there were faces that had the potential to be recognized.

As they were making one of these inspections, climbing and stepping over strewn and overlapping corpses, some ways behind them the door to a dug-out opened. The Hellsing men stopped and looked back, remaining crouched or standing as they watched the door, saw it waver a little, and waited until something resembling a human ventured out.

Gun in hand and a steel helmet on his head, the man peered at them, coming up the sunken steps to glare out into the trench. As his gun aimed, the Hellsing men lifted their guns to defend themselves, but spoke to avoid a fight – some waved their hands to show that the man was making the wrong assumption. "We aren't soldiers. Put the gun down. We've been working with one of your comrades." Hands motioned to the blonde German standing mute among them, but the other German remained as he was, though he did not shoot. There were voices coming from the dug-out, so others were prepared to support him. But there was not enough space for the other soldiers to emerge, as the German with the gun filled the entrance. He shifted with difficulty as another tried to level his gun at the Hellsing operatives.

_"Ich bin hier."_ The pale German spoke, watching the men as they stared back at him from the dug-out. _"Sie sind nicht Soldaten. Und Sie sind nicht Dämonen."_

The men were uncertain, staring from the mouth of the dug-out and refusing to lower their guns. The standstill drew out as the men muttered to others who still remained in the cramped dug-out.

With a rush of movement and a heavy landing that struck the dirt above them, all of the men thrust their attention on the wall directly above the dug-out, staring at the flapping red trench coat and waving black hair that was easy to perceive against the grey morning sky. Alucard glared down at the alarmed German soldiers, scowling at their weapons before looking to the Hellsing men who were gathered with the ghouls the vampire had slaughtered earlier. "I've finished. The tunnels have been purged and the pests have been exterminated; the trenches are clean. I have not checked the holes the soldiers shut themselves in, but most likely they are only occupied by humans. So our mission is complete."

"We need to check your work before we are ready to leave." A hard tone was taken up by a Hellsing man, in response to the vampire's appearance and the hostility the German soldiers continued to show them. But the Hellsing man's sternness had no evidence of overwhelming concern, only irritation.

"It is morning." Alucard reminded him, a voice deep and heavy with its lingering accent and swelling displeasure, but it only suggested resistance.

"So there will be more light for us to use, and it is more likely the ghouls have gone into hiding. So there is all the more reason for us to check your work."

Alucard scowled at the frown and the unwavering glare the man was giving him. With irritation mounting and the daylight's influence increasing, the vampire leapt from the wall and landed before the Germans who shouted a warning and thrust their guns towards the demon. But with movement's that were too rash and hurried for the men to anticipate and respond to, having expected the man in the trench coat to be put off by their weapons, Alucard snatched their uniforms and tossed the men from the entrance into the dug-out. They landed roughly, but jerked up and scrambled into a position to fire at the vampire, shouting again as they hesitated to shoot where they could potentially harm the men who were crammed inside the dug-out.

The pale German had stepped forward to attempt to inform them that the rote Vampir would not hurt them. But "ein roter Vampir" did nothing to comfort the men or make them trust the pale man who was behaving oddly.

The Vampire Alucard meanwhile shoved and thrust men out of the way as it searched the dug-out before emerging abruptly with the report that no ghouls were hidden here. And with that, the vampire leapt to the top of the wall and darted off with a swiftness that surprised the Germans who lay about, dazed and confused. The abused soldiers were tense and suspicious, so they proved difficult to pacify as the Hellsing men used broken German and their pale companion to communicate with them. Yet the soldiers accepted the Hellsing men after a time, and the operatives took advantage of this development to approach the dug-outs with the German soldiers to ask barricaded men if ghouls were inside. If no answer came, the men would know that either several ghouls were present (one having been shut in with the living men) or that the dug-out was empty. They only found humans in the dug-outs once they were given permission to complete their inspections. After an hour of struggling with doubtful and frightened men, the Hellsing operatives came upon the first dug-out in which it was obvious the Vampire Alucard had preceded them.

The door was broken and wrenched off of its hinges, and the men were agitated and confused, unsure of what had happened when this 'red' creature had suddenly 'attacked' and 'brutalized' them, but then had left without harming, killing, or eating them. The soldiers were not satisfied when they were told the red creature had been checking for more monsters, several remaining bitter about their bruises and the unacceptable treatment they had suffered. They only began to forgive Alucard when the pale German recounted how the demon had killed so many of the ghouls.

With this, the Hellsing men's only task was to check the vampire's work, as had been claimed before, meeting with distraught soldiers who lingered around their dug-outs, and checking the dead with their aid to ensure no ghouls remained. The Vampire Alucard returned to slink behind the men in the shadows, waiting impatiently for them to be satisfied so that they might leave and the demon could finally sleep in its coffin.

But several German soldiers, ranking officers, were unwilling to release the Hellsing men so easily. They were the enemy, or so these officers claimed. The flood of ghouls was suspected to have been the Allies' doing, and the Hellsing operatives argued to make the officers believe that the Allied trenches were in a similar state - though it was understood that the ghouls had originated from the Axis trenches.

With mounting discomfort and the inability to tolerate this squabbling, it was the Vampire Alucard that stepped forward and thrust itself into the fray to put an end to the shouting.

"We have finished what we were required to do, and now we will leave. If you continue to spew this idiocy, if you choose to make us your enemy, I will slaughter your men." The tommy gun was directed at one of the officers who was red faced and burning with indignation. His own weapon was drawn, with several others, as the German soldiers became more hostile. The vampire hissed venomously, baring elongated fangs as the black mane of hair stirred in a lifting breeze. "Shoot me and threaten Van Hellsing's men, and I have permission to kill you. As of now Van Hellsing would not permit me to harm humans, but if you stand in our way you will be considered an obstacle that must be destroyed."

The men glowered back at the monster, some cursing and spitting in the background. Soldiers who had recognized the Hellsing Organization as their savior, were mute and unable to help the men now, watching and hoping for the best outcome.

The man at the end of Alucard's gun growled, and his hand twitched on his own weapon. The vampire's head tilted threateningly, and his low accented voice bit into the man's nerves. "Shoot me. But you know how effective bullets are against the undead. And I am Hell compared to those pitiful things that caused you to cower in your rabbit holes, _Schädlinge_. You have no weapon that can kill me - _Ich bin der Teufel."_

The demon's eyes were round, fire consuming the humanity their shape had retained and leaving only the raw demonic abyss that filled the Vampire Alucard – and endless pit of fire and darkness. The staring German officer felt his hand weaken. The gun lowered.

The men submitted, and the Hellsing operatives were permitted to leave the German trenches and pass over no man's land without being mowed down by their guns. When the groups was nearing the Allied territory, the Vampire Alucard paused and looked to the German trenches, causing the other men to glance back and find a figure standing out in the open, on top of the trench wall, relatively close to where he had first met Alucard. The pale German's hands were waving for their attention, and then they continued to wave as a means of thanking them and hoping that they have a safe return journey. The men lifted their arms to show that the message had been received while the vampire did nothing, and they lowered themselves into the first Allied trench, which welcomed them with an assembly of soldiers who congratulated and thanked them profusely. The reception was warm and brief. Soon the Hellsing men had reunited and quickly departed from the battle field.

*~*~::..+..::~*~*

It was unknown whether this incident had any influence on the course of the war, but the Great War came to an end a month later. With the progression of the seasons, fading from Fall and reaching Winter, a letter reached the Hellsing estate, dating November 21st, though it had reached them in mid-January. Van Hellsing was pondering the contents of the letter in his study, while down below in the crypt-like laboratories its intended receiver remained ignorant of the letter's existence. The letter would be given to Alucard eventually, but for now it was in Van Hellsing's possession.

The aged Hellsing wore his glasses at the end of his nose and read the letter in an armchair, where he was comfortably heated by the flames that crackled in his fireplace. Snow fell beyond the curtains that masked the window, and the night was animated by the wind as it batted about the icy flakes before forcing them into the snow that had fallen before them.

_ Leiber roter Vampir,_

_Ich heiße Anselm Baumgartner. Ich habe Sie zweimal angeschossen, als wir uns in den Schützengraben trafen. Es tut mir leid. Aber ich glaube nicht, dass es weh tat. Ich bin nun zu Hause, aber ich kann nicht vergessen, was Sie für mich getan haben. Ich und viele andere wären tot. Vielen Dank für Ihre Hilfe._

_Ich werde nicht vergessen, was Sie getan haben. Ich weiß nicht, was ich tun kann, um das wieder gut zu machen, aber wenn dieser Brief Sie erreichen sollte, bitte sagen Sie mir, was ich für Sie tun kann._

_Nochmals vielen Dank._ _Ich bin glücklich meine Frau wieder zu sehen._

_Von_

_Anselm Baumgartner._

* * *

Translation (for 13HellFES): (my translation may not be perfect - slightly altered to make it work better in English) ^_^'

_Dear Red Vampire,_

_My name is Anselm Baumgartner. I shot you twice when we met in the trenches. I am sorry. But I do not think that it hurt you. I am home, but I cannot forget what you have done for me. I and many others would be dead/would have died. Thank you very much for your help._

_I will not forget what you have done. I do not know what I can do to make it up to you, but should this letter reach you, please tell me what I can do for you._

_Once again many thanks. I am happy to see my wife again._

_From,_

_Anselm Baumgartner._

* * *

Ich studier Deutsch, aber mein Deutsch ist nicht sehr gut. As you can see. XD

I'm sorry for all of the errors, but I like the language, I want to practice, and Bram Stoker had Abraham speaking (some) German in Dracula, so it seems appropriate in some of these stories + I couldn't leave the Germans out of this story. ^_^'

Once again, thank you Leeni13 for fixing all of the German errors. (You were so so so thorough. I'm sorry you had to do so much work.) ^_^'


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